


Lost

by jar_full_of_honey



Category: NCIS
Genre: Day Four, F/M, Slibbs, Slibbs Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24187564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jar_full_of_honey/pseuds/jar_full_of_honey
Summary: They simply can't live without each other.
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Comments: 6
Kudos: 103





	Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I mean... I know that would never happen on the show but I'm just a sucker for a little drama.

Everything hurt. His whole body arched painfully. His head throbbed and he felt like someone set his body on fire. But he did feel something so that probably meant he was still alive. Or he was dead and had landed in hell. That would explain the heat he felt. Come one gunny, get it together. When he finally managed to open his eyes, a blond woman stared back at him with big brown eyes. He closed his eyes again. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her there, but she was simply the wrong blonde. 

“Oh my god Gibbs. You… you are awake.” He opened his eyes again at her shocked tone. “Of course, I am. What did you expect? Me taking some kinda beauty sleep?” When she didn’t response and just kept starring at him, he sat up a little and touched her hand. “Bishop, you okay?” She just shook her head.

“Gibbs? What is the last thing you remember?” “We chased the suspect over the rooftops and suddenly he turned around and started firing. Jack and I jumped for cover and I fell down the roof.” Elli nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s right. Also, it was more like you pushed Jack out of harm’s way which made you lose your footing. That’s why you fell of the roof.” He remembered that very clearly but didn’t thought Bishop knew. 

“Is Jack okay?” Elli cringed at that but nodded. “Yes, she’s… her health is perfectly fine.” A long stretch of silence followed before “Gibbs, I don’t know how to break this to you.” He glared at her. “How about just saying it Bishop?” 

She took a deep breath and then turned his whole world upside down. “After you fell down that roof the ambulance brought you to the hospital. Your heart stopped three times on the way. You had a massive wound on your head because you fell headfirst down that roof. Two days after they’d brought you in the doctors declared you brain-dead. That was six month ago. Today they stopped the life-support. We saw your heart stop beating on the monitor. The others left just a few minutes ago. They were… it was hard. I stayed. I wanted to… say goodbye, I guess. And then you just started breathing again.”

He looked at Bishop and seriously asked himself if maybe she fell from that roof and hit her head, because what she was saying didn’t make any sense at all. But her teary eyes and the fact that outside birds where chirping and the trees had leaves which they normally did not have in November, made him think that maybe she was telling the truth. 

After a lot of doctors had stared at him from at least hundred different angles and a load of tests had been made, he was finally being discharged 5 days later. He didn’t know what should rattle him more. The fact that he’d just missed six month of his life and had been declared dead or the fact that Jack hadn’t shown up once in the hospital since he’d woken up. 

Everyone was making a lot of fuss and in some kind of way he could understand it because they all thought he’d died. But for him it felt like he had just been out for a few hours because he’d hit his head. In the last days literally everyone had dropped by to see him. His team had been there almost every day, as well as Ducky and Vance, Grace and Tobias and even Tony, Ziva and Tali made their way across the world to see the wonder – that was apparently him – up close. 

Only Jack didn’t show up once. But no one mentioned her, and Elli had said she was okay. His pride stopped him from asking about her and so he sulked in silence. Asking himself what the hell had happened that she didn’t even want to see him after he came back from the dead. 

After another excruciating week at home he was finally cleared to head back to work. Being back knowing what he knew was strange, but his team really tried to keep things as normal as possible and he appreciated it. When he hadn’t even seen Jack once at work by Thursday, he couldn’t help but ask. “Okay. Where the hell is Sloane?”

You could have cut the silence in the bullpen with a knife. His three agents all looked sad and frightened at the same time and they seemed to have some weird wordless conversation with their eyes. 

After a few seconds McGee sighed and turned around in his chair to face his boss. “Okay Gibbs. I don’t think there is an easy way to break this to you…” Gibbs just glared at him. “That’s exactly what Bishop said before she told me that I’d been dead. How bad can it be?” He heard something like “You have no idea” from Torres direction but chose not to comment on it. Instead he focused all of his attention on McGee. “Jack… she doesn’t work here anymore.” “What?” He hadn’t seen this coming. “Where is she?” His team simultaneously shrugged their shoulders. “We don’t know. After she turned in her badge and her service weapon she went completely off the radar. We tried to find her Gibbs. But she doesn’t want to be found.”, said Elli who looked as worried as he felt. “Why the hell did she turn her badge in? Why did she quit? What happened?” 

Suddenly his agents turned as white as a wall. He tried to break one of them with his best Gibbs-glare, but no one moved. After a while he stopped glaring at them and sat back down behind his desk with a resigned sigh. He was worried. And also scarred, he had to admit. When Jack wasn’t near, he couldn’t protect her, and he didn’t like that thought at all. 

Later he thought Torres probably must have felt sorry for him. If he would have been them, he wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to tell him either.   
“She quit her job and disappeared because she thought you were dead. Because she knew that you only fell from that roof because you pushed her out of the way. Because you saved her life.” Gibbs just starred at Torres. He didn’t quite understand what this meant. Torres must have seen his confusion because he elaborated. “She thinks she is responsible for your death. She feels like you gave your life for hers.” Oh shit. 

Three hours later he hopped on a flight to California. His team had assured him that they had searched the whole country, the whole planet for her but didn’t find her. He didn’t doubt that for a second. He knew if she didn’t want to be found there was no way for any satellite in the world to find her. But he knew her. Knew her thoughts. He knew what smell she loved, which sounds she hated, where she felt most comfortable. He knew she would be somewhere close to the sea. Somewhere warm, because even if being captured in the desert was probably the worst thing she had ever endured, the heat had become a part of her. And somehow, he knew she hadn’t left the country. He couldn’t tell why but he still… kind of felt her. If that made sense somehow. 

It took him five weeks to find her. California was a big state after all. And she’d covered her tracks really well. But luck seemed to be on his side this time because when he showed her picture to a local in a small town a few hours outside of San Diego the old man recognized her. He pointed him to a tiny beach house. Far away from curious eyes. 

On the short walk down to the beach he remembered what he told himself five weeks ago on the flight to California. He couldn’t simply knock on her door and not have a plan. Sure, he wanted to save her from killing herself over a death that didn’t really happen but that wasn’t all. This woman deserved better. She deserved someone who was sure about his actions. Who could give her the reassurance that she needed.   
And on the flight over here he had realized that he wanted to be this man. That he couldn’t live when she wasn’t around. That she was the first person he had thought about after awakening from a six-month coma. He wanted her. All of her. Without conditions or limitations. And he wanted to tell her that he’d happily fly of a roof again and again if that meant he could save her life. 

When he arrived at the house he didn’t hesitate. He was sure. He knocked and she opened the door only seconds later. He would never forget the look in her eyes. She just stared at him. Tears filling up her eyes from the moment she had looked at him. She reached her hand out to his face and carefully touched him there. The moment she felt him under her fingertips was the moment she broke down on the threshold. He sobs where heart-wrenching and he couldn’t do much more than sit down beside her and hold her in her arms as long as she wanted him too. 

Hours later when the sun had already settled down for the night they were still sitting at the beach. Looking out over the ocean. Listening to the waves break. Looking up to the stars. It had taken him some time to explain everything to her. To reassure her over and over again that he was alive. That he was there with her. He had let her touch him as often as she wanted to. He knew she was making sure that he was still there, still alive and breathing. 

“Jack?” “Mhh..” He wrapped the blanket a little tighter around them, feeling her seeking out his body heat. “Just so you know. I would do it all over again. I’ll never regret to have pushed you out of the way.” She stroked his cheek softly. “I know.”   
“Why did you leave Jack?” She sat up a little straighter and turned a little so she could properly look at him. “Because I couldn’t live without you. Why did you come looking for me?” He shrugged. “I couldn’t live without you.” 

He kissed her then. At the beach, under the stars. On the other side of the country. Because he had found her. He was always going to find her. No matter where she’d be. Because he could quite simply really not live without here. And he knew there would never be a day when he didn’t want to have her close.


End file.
